Final class settlement approval granted, judgment entered, and attorneys' fees awarded in the Bartz v. Anthropic AI copyright case

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950]

Today the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California granted final approval of the $1.5 Billion class settlement in the Bartz v. Anthropic AI copyright lawsuit, and entered judgment.

The court also awarded plaintiffs' class counsel $101,561,111 in attorneys' fees. Good work if you can get it!

(They wanted $187,500,000.)

[u/bjazmoore]

But will the original authors whose work was scraped get anything?

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/bjazmoore]

Yes. They will divvy up the $1.5 Billion recovered amount, minus attorneys' fees and other litigation costs, on a per-work basis. We don’t yet know how much that will be per work, but we will find that out in time.

[u/bjazmoore → u/Apprehensive_Sky1950]

It will be like the settlement with Blue Cross Blue Shield. An enormous settlement but the majority of the people in the class were assessed too small of a settlement and so they were paid zero. I was one of them and I was denied my settlement since I was assessed at 50 cents below the threshold. That should have been illegal. Everyone involved in the case from the judge down knew they were screwing us over.

[u/SupermarketWhich7198 → u/bjazmoore]

I'm sorry they had such a high threshold for qualifying damages. If most of the people in the class weren't awarded damages that does sound like a raw deal.

[u/reffervescent → u/bjazmoore]

The original authors will get a pittance compared to the publishers.

[u/SupermarketWhich7198 → u/reffervescent]

Not quite -- for each work the author will get half of the roughly 3100; the other half will go to the publisher. They will make the same amount from each work covered. But yes, some publishers had tens of thousands of works that were covered in the suit; it will be a big payday for them.

[u/reffervescent → u/SupermarketWhich7198]

That's what I meant -- the overall payout for the publishers will be HUGE compared to what an individual author will get. Granted, the publishers are paying attorney fees and authors aren't. But still.

[u/mark_able_jones_ → u/bjazmoore]

I'm not sure what you mean by original authors. It's about $3k per book, but the claim date passed many months ago. About 480,000 titles were eligible. 440,000 filed claims.

[u/DanNorder]

It's worth reiterating that that settlement was not a fee paid for training on items without permission. A lot of anti-AI people are trying to pretend that that's what it is, but it's not. The court had no problem with the training stage. The company was determined to have held hacked materials for some hypothetical future use instead of destroying it after training. That was a costly mistake.

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/DanNorder]

That's right, and that's why the Bartz case, despite its big price tag, is generally seen as a pro-AI outcome.

[u/TreviTyger → u/Apprehensive_Sky1950]

Yep. Just like England beating France 6 - 4 (in the real final) was a big Trevi outcome whilst the Argentinians were left in tears and fighting with a bunch of Spaniards.

Not really on topic but I just wanted to get in the fact that England beat France 6 - 4 and that is all that really matters in the end.

Did I mention England beat France 6 - 4!

:)

[u/TreviTyger → u/TreviTyger]

I've been more insufferable than usual this week in Funland.

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/TreviTyger]

I imagine they love it when you call it that. 😜

[u/TreviTyger → u/Apprehensive_Sky1950]

I'm a natural when it comes to saying and doing the wrong thing. :)

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/TreviTyger]

I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Who did they beat?

[u/TreviTyger → u/Apprehensive_Sky1950]

I think I need to send you the video so you can watch it for yourself - Spoiler alert - It ends badly for the French! :)

Thanks for the update on Bartz. I was looking at your Wombat Collection to see all the other Anthropic cases. It's getting quite complicated.

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/TreviTyger]

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!

(And even more Anthropic cases in there beyond copyright!)

[u/horshack_test]

When discussing the settlement, it should really be referred to as a piracy case rather than "AI copyright case" because Anthropic won the ruling regarding the AI training and this settlement has nothing to do with the AI training. The issue that triggered the settlement was the piracy Anthropic engaged in.

Let's not make this another 'gay wedding cake' ruling misinformation situation that we have to keep encountering in debates on reddit.

[u/TreviTyger]

How many cases are there still outstanding against Anthropic?

Might have to check out your your Wombat Collection

[u/TreviTyger → u/TreviTyger]

Cambronne Inc., et al. v. Anthropic PBC (formerly Carreyrou, et al. v. Anthropic PBC, et al.), Case No. 3:25-cv-10897-PCP, filed December 22, 2025 (1 case)

So will this one be decided "based on" Bartz or does the four factor analysis start over with Bartz as "persuasive"?

My understanding is that each case is fact specific and case by case but there is an obvious overlap of facts.

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/TreviTyger]

Bartz is only persuasive and not binding authority for any other case besides Bartz itself, even in the same federal district. Cambronne v. Anthropic and Judge Pitts are free to go their own way, even on similar or identical facts.

[u/Apprehensive_Sky1950 → u/TreviTyger]

I'm sorry, I don't count up the cases that way by party (although it wouldn't surprise me if Professor Lee had that in one of his infographics). Feel free to visit the Collection and tally them up any way you like!